What do you mean?
you just drop you absolute value and subtract 2 on both sides to cancel out the 2 on the side with the variable.
and only |inside| has to positive..everything outside the | | can be whatever

\[|x-a|\] is the distance from x to a. for example
\[|5-8|=3\] because the distance between 5 and 8 is 3. as such, it cannot be negative. so if you ever see
\[|x-a|=-3\] for example, go get a snack and forget about trying to solve it. there is no solution to such a thing

we can go even further and try to work this out like it would pop out a good result:
|x + 2| +16 = 14
-16 -16
----------------
|x+2| = -2
(x+2) = -2 or -(x+2) = -2
-2 -2 -x-2 = -2
+2 +2
--------------------------
x = -4 or -x = 0; or simply x=0
these are the only 2 possible solutions we can get from it; and we already tested x=-4 and it failed us. Lets test out x=0
|0 + 2| +16 = 14
|2| +16 = 14
2 +16 = 14
18 = 14 ... another bad result; since x cannot be the only 2 options that would naturally fit; the answer has to be that nothing will fit.